


When The Sun Takes Over

by volleydorks



Series: Haikyuu!! Behind Bars [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!, Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, M/M, Untagged Characters - Freeform, untagged relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:15:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volleydorks/pseuds/volleydorks
Summary: Following Kageyama’s disastrous altercation with none other than Aida Riko, he is dethroned from his position as ruler of Fukurodani Penitentiary and sent to Shinzen Maximum Security Prison along with the rest of Nekoma and Karasuno. Though he is able to take Aida down as his parting gift, it’s too little, too late.His seven-year-long reign over Fukurodani is over, and now, he sits at the bottom of Shinzen’s prison hierarchy, forced to learn the ways of the commoners he spent oh-so-long looking down upon. Eating the same food as them. Living the same way as them. Serving his time the same way as them.But, Kageyama’s kingdom remains intact. Karasuno still band around him, and Nekoma are also forced to remain with them through circumstance. Even with the Johzenji trying to destroy them from the outside, the prison guards constantly antagonising them and the inmates bullying them and riling them up, Kageyama is still their ruler.And, as ruler, his executive order remains the same: “We escape on October 10th.”[N.B. No knowledge of KnB is required to read this fic. The plot largely revolves around the Haikyuu cast; the KnB characters are mainly playing supporting/antagonist roles]
Series: Haikyuu!! Behind Bars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/853256
Comments: 17
Kudos: 13





	1. Welcome to Max

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, obligatory note before we get into this:  
> I started writing this Haikyuu!! Behind Bars series like three years ago. And while I never intended to complete it, given my loss of interest in the Haikyuu fandom (and in complete honesty, the fact that I couldn't help but cringe whenever looking back at my early writing) I've been receiving some kind, heartfelt comments that have inspired me to read through this series again.
> 
> And given the sheer amount of time I spent away from it (I'd genuinely forgotten the plot, so it felt like I was reading it again for the first time) I felt I was able to detach myself a little more rather than nitpicking every little detail and... well, I guess I understand why people enjoyed reading it now. There are plot points in the past two stories that I probably wouldn't have gone with had I written it today with my increased experience as a writer, but I don't want to pore over what I COULD'VE done. (And I certainly don't want to spend a fuckton of time overhauling the entire thing and rewriting it like I originally pondered.)
> 
> Rather, I think it's best I conclude what I started so that I can get some closure on this series. Not just for me (who looked at the notes I made for the third and final story and said "well, this won't do") but for the readers who have been kind enough to leave really heartfelt messages expressing their wishes for me to finish this fic. In all honesty, I wouldn't be here completing this now if not for those messages, so thank you.
> 
> As a quick mention, if you read my notes r.e. what I planned to do for the third story, just... forget all of that, lol. I'm planning to change things up significantly now that I have a better grasp of where I want to take this plot.
> 
> Also, regarding the lack of relationship/character tags: I decided that I don't really want people to be reading this just to see their faves get together (even if that means I get significantly less readers /shrugs/ it is what it is). I want the focus to solely be on the plot. Yes, there will be some relationship interactions in the course of this fic, but it's far from being the focus. And in all honesty, I feel like they're a spoiler of sorts. I saw a writer doing this in the Haikyuu fandom (god I wish I remembered their username) and honestly, it felt really nice to be completely shocked by what I was reading without the tags shaping my expectations. So, I want to apply that same principal to this fic.
> 
> (And besides, there's too many fucking characters for me to tag them all in the first place. Only so much typing I can do before my fingers fall off.)
> 
> ANYWAY, to conclude this ridiculously long note, updates will be somewhat sporadic. I'll write when the urge hits me. But, I promise that this WILL get finished. I've drafted out a new outline from beginning to end and the entire fic is underway, so there's no worries. There might be stretches of time where I don't post, but just know that a new chapter will drop sooner or later.
> 
> okay I'm done rambling, feel free to gather your popcorn and start reading! Thank you for your support <3  
> (also, 'hole' is slang for 'solitary confinement' - relevant for this chapter)

Chapter One: To Imprison a Man

“Alright, ladies. Here we are — Shinzen Maximum Security Prison.”

Kageyama stared hard into the eyes of the Shinzen prison guard who had thrown open the doors of the prison van, a malicious smirk playing on his lips. Already, Kageyama could sense that this guy possessed nothing but bad intentions in his body. His eyes lowered down to catch a glimpse of the name on the badge — Aomine.

“Ladies?” he heard Yaku ask. “He’s not on about us, is he?”

“He’s making fun of us, dumbass,” Tsukishima dryly commented.

“Oh. Well… that’s mean,” Yaku said, a tinge of annoyance lacing his tone.

While everything leading up to this moment had been one continuous drone of confusion, frustration and anger for Kageyama, now… it was all beginning to clear up. He couldn’t allow his brain to get bogged down by feelings right now if he wanted to make it out of this place in one piece.

So, letting out a deep breath, he rose to his feet and allowed himself to be shackled up by the feet and wrists. The same thing happened to the rest of the Karasuno and Nekoma members behind him, varying numbers of complaints and mutters heard as Aomine shackled them all up. There were other guards around, making sure that not a single person stepped out of line. And Kageyama could see the guard towers at each corner of the yard which they were standing in. The yard was spacious, granting them open air and a view of the sky, but it didn’t seem that they would be allowed to go onto the yard at will as they had back in Fukurodani.

That was why it was so _quiet_ here. Kageyama almost missed the noise of rowdy inmates hollering behind the wire fences at the sight of new fish. The concrete block of a building just ahead of him, devoid of anything that could’ve been classed as a window, was frightfully unforgiving. It looked dark, cold, empty. And even the air in this place felt different. It was cold and heavy on his skin as Aomine pulled them all forwards by the chain, forcing them to walk in sync.

“Now,” Aomine began, speaking in a deep, gruff voice, “I know you Fukurodani fairies are used to being on top. I know _you_ in particular—” He jabbed Kageyama’s shoulder hard. “—are used to ordering everyone around. But, let me tell you something. If you ever think about trying to pull the stunts you did at Fukurodani here, I’ll knock you into next week. And I’ll make sure you never see the sun again.”

Kageyama’s sun was already gone. But, Aomine didn’t know that.

“And just so you all know,” Aomine continued as he forced them towards the imposing building, “this is _prison_. Not hookup centre. You’ll all be in cells on your own, which you’ll leave three times a day. Breakfast is at eight in the morning. Lasts an hour. Count will be half an hour before that. If you’re not standing to attention when we open your cell doors, you’ll be sanctioned.”

“Uh… Aomine-san, how many shots is it?” Kageyama heard Suga pipe up.

“Shots?” Aomine let out a snort of laughter. “God, you Fukurodani fairies really are something. Shots don’t exist here. We don’t believe in pseudo-punishments. If you step out of line once, we’ll make sure you don’t forget it.”

Aomine’s free hand resting against his baton was more than enough to drive his point home. Kageyama heard Suga gulp to himself. Meanwhile, Kageyama let out another deep breath to steady himself. Already, he could tell that Aomine was going to be by far one of his biggest challenges in this place. This wasn’t the type of guy who would accept bribes. He couldn’t be neutralised. His sole purpose in this place was to destroy and dominate.

In other words, he was the king of Shinzen.

“Lunch is at noon. Now, you won’t go down to the cafeteria for this. We’ll come to you, cell by cell, and give you a bottle of water and a snack. You’re not allowed to hold onto the trash. A trash bag will come around half an hour later for you to dispose your trash in,” Aomine continued to explain. “We’ll also be searching your cells on a daily basis, usually during the final count of the day. If we find any contraband, it’s an instant visit to solitary. You know how long it takes for a man to go insane when he sits in a pitch black room that’s so tiny you can’t even lie down comfortably?”

“Uh… how long?” Ennoshita asked, sensing that perhaps Aomine was looking for a response.

“If we find contraband in your cell, you’ll find out,” was the cryptic response. “And trust me. You don’t want to find out.”

He heard Ennoshita gulp in response. Kageyama let out a heavy exhalation through his nostrils. This was bad. He could sense that everyone was becoming intimidated by this Aomine guy. If they became too intimidated, there was a risk that some of them would start to give up on the idea of escaping Shinzen.

There was no way Kageyama was going to let himself rot on the inside of this building. He was going to get out, even if it killed him.

“Anyway, moving on. Allocated yard time will depend on the block you’re placed in. Lunch is at eight o’clock, lasts until nine. So, just to summarise, on average, you’ll be leaving your cells three times a day. Breakfast, yard time and dinner. Sometimes you’ll be taken out to get a shower, and if you’re chosen to do yard work then you’ll be taken out for that too. But, outside of that, you’re free to rot in your cells like the trash you are.”

“Hey, bro. Are we allowed to ask questions or what?” Kuroo quipped.

Aomine sharply wheeled around to glare at him. “I’m not your _bro_. It’s Aomine to you, inmate.”

“Ah, right.” Judging from his tone of voice, Kuroo was the only one so far who didn’t seem to be all that intimidated by Aomine. “Aomine-san. Do we get to choose our roomies, or what?”

A smirk phased onto Aomine’s lips. “ _Roomies_. No. One person? One cell.”

At that, there were some murmurs amongst everyone else. Irritation etched itself onto Aomine’s face until at last, he bellowed, “Silence!”

The murmurs cut out almost straight away.

“You don’t get roomies,” Aomine continued, “but some of the cells have vents. It’s not uncommon for inmates to communicate through them. I personally don’t give a fuck what you do inside your cells, but don’t come asking me to let you move cells so you can chat with your buddies. I don’t want to hear any of you asking me for favours. And I especially don’t want to hear any of you _threatening_ me for favours. If I sense any sign of insurgence amongst you imbeciles, I’ll have you in solitary faster than you can say ‘oh fuck’. And I won’t let you out.”

At that, silence dawned among them all. Aomine led them into the building without another word, the tip-tapping of his shoes all they could hear against the linoleum floor. After walking through a long corridor, they were brought into the main area. All that could be seen was row after row of depressing-looking cells, and much to Kageyama’s displeasure, there were no bars to be seen. There were just metal doors with slots in them, and that was it.

If this was the normal prison, he dreaded to discover what solitary would be like.

“There’s four blocks in this prison,” Aomine continued to explain. “A, B, C and D. The inmates here call Block D ‘heaven’, so that should be enough to let you pieces of scum know that you’ll never see the inside of that block. Then—”

“Aomine, you asshole, are you bullying the new fish again?”

Aomine’s tirade was brought short by a red-haired guard who was approaching them, wearing the same Shinzen guard get-up that Aomine was. A navy blue shirt with ‘SHINZEN MAX’ written across it, complete with a pair of black slacks and black shoes. Painfully plain, just like the rest of this place.

“What the fuck do you want, Kagami?”

“I’m here on the warden’s orders,” Kagami replied. “He says it’s not a good idea to keep these guys all together. I’m taking half of them to B block.”

_Oh, no_. Kageyama hadn’t been anticipating this… if they were in different blocks, that could potentially mean they wouldn’t be able to communicate with each other anymore. There was no guarantee that they would all get yard time together. No guarantee that they would all be eating in the same cafeteria as they had done back in Fukurodani.

“Yeah, sure. Jumble ‘em up a bit,” Aomine said. “These are two different gangs. If we segregate them off into gangs, I’m sure they’ll be able to coordinate their usual shenanigans somehow. So… let’s look at the notes that Aida so kindly sent us.”

“We don’t have time. We’re meant to be handling lunch in about an hour from now,” Kagami replied. “Let’s get them processed for now. We’ll discuss where we’ll put them later. In the meantime, just give me half. It’ll help to speed things up.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

Kageyama watched as Kagami got away with the Nekoma members, leaving him with only the Karasuno members for company. He stifled the sigh that he was dying to release. This really was a dire situation. If _Aida_ had sent them notes, it no doubt included information about who got along with who, who was fucking who. They would all be split up based on that information.

“Hey, Tobio,” he heard Suga whisper in his ear. “Remember to breathe.”

He let out a hum in response. But, given that Aomine had begun to drag them forward once more, there was no more time for conversation. They’d gotten past all of the cells, and now they’d been brought to a gate. Aomine whipped out a key from his belt before unlocking it, allowing them to come through. And then, locking the door behind them, he opened the only door in this particular section.

It led out to what appeared to be a shower area.

Except, there were no showerheads. There was only a hose.

Aomine undid their shackles, finally releasing their sore ankles and wrists, before ordering them to line up against the wall.

“Let me remind you that I’ve locked the door out there, so you can’t subdue me and make a run for it,” Aomine coldly reminded them. “My baton is faster than any of you. Even you, Mister Sniper.”

Kageyama had to fight the urge to stick his middle finger up in response. He gritted his teeth together as he lined up against the wall as ordered, staring back at Aomine. Aomine’s eyes wandered back and forth, waiting until he was satisfied with the line that had formed. It was then that he gave one single order.

“Strip.”

Though Kageyama was aware of everyone else beginning to take off their clothes without complaint, Kageyama remained there, fully vested and with a defiant glare on his face. Though he knew highlighting himself as a troublemaker in Aomine’s eyes was a bad idea, he wasn’t going to submit to this man so soon. Not _him_ , the man who had been Fukurodani’s ruler.

“Oi, you.” Aomine’s eyes honed in on him specifically. “I said _strip_. What, do you think you’re exempt from the rules?” Then, taking a step forward, he said, “Do you think you’re above me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Kageyama replied, folding his arms together. “But I refuse to degrade myself in such a manner in front of you. Or anyone, for that matter.”

“Hmm. Maybe a week in the hole will change your mind.”

“Tobio, just do it,” Suga hissed. “We need to focus on keeping our heads above water right now.”

“No.” Kageyama took a step forward, firmly holding Aomine’s gaze. “You want to put me in solitary? Go ahead. You won’t break me. I’d never be scared of someone like you.”

“Tobio!” he heard Suga exclaim before roughly pulling him back by the wrist. “Aomine-san, please forgive him. He’s just in a bit of a tizz right now, he didn’t mean to offend you—”

“No, no,” Kageyama smoothly cut through. “I meant that.”

“Oh?” Aomine’s eyes lit up. “Alright then. Well, it would be a shame if you went to solitary unclean. Let’s get this party started.”

Without missing a beat, Aomine hefted the heavy-duty hose into his hands and before Kageyama could even take a breath, ice-cold water was blasting him in the face. The pressure was so high that he was blown right up against the tiled wall, eventually crumpling to the ground in an attempt to keep in what little warmth was left in his body. He’d try to breathe, but then water would rush into his open mouth and right up his nostrils, causing him to splutter and choke as he struggled to open his eyes. It felt as if he were drowning, and yet, he was above ground.

Trying to block the hose with his hands did no good either. He was flailing about on the floor like an octopus without water, desperately trying to deflect the water so that he could finally breathe.

But, when his body had become so cold that he couldn’t find the strength within him to keep moving, his every limb went limp. Even when he heard the hose flicker off, he was shivering hard on the ground, feeling as if his every breath were an ice-cold gust. His eyes couldn’t focus on anything. All he could focus on was this _coldness_.

Oh, God. He was cold.

He was so goddamn _cold_.

***

Kageyama spent the next few God-knows how many days in a state of perpetual coldness. While the bright tiled walls in front of his eyes had eventually changed to pitch black, trapped in a solitary confinement cell with lights that had conveniently ‘gone out’, he still shivered. The air conditioner didn’t seem to wane in its efforts to keep his body cool. And just when his body had felt as if it were on the verge of regaining the slightest semblance of warmth, some evil guard bastard had come in to throw a bucket of ice-cold water over him, yelling,

“Oi! Aomine, you have the best ideas, I’m telling you. I’m going to enjoy using these Fukurodani fairies as my little punching bags,” the guard declared before yelling out, “Close on 13!”

And just like that, the metal door thudded shut, leaving Kageyama to tremble to himself. He was cold… so cold… but if anything, this was just these guards forcing him to acknowledge the kind of person he was. He wasn’t someone who was meant to know warmth.

Though he knew Kuroo envied him for getting to know the warmth of a mother’s love, that warmth had faded a long time ago. His dad had beat every last inch of that warmth out of him, and Kageyama himself had sealed the deal when he’d stood over his dad’s dying body and watched the life drain out of his eyes as soft whines trickled out from his bloody lips. Just as bloody as the broken beer bottle that still rested in Kageyama’s hand.

That day, his heart had frozen over completely.

It was only now that the ice was spreading from his heart to his veins, circulating through his blood and causing each of his breaths to come out in shallow gusts of icy wind. He’d become so weak that he couldn’t move anymore. He was draped underneath a damp blanket, staring up at the darkness.

It had been so long that he wasn’t quite sure if the darkness was in this room, or if he’d just shut his eyes a long time ago and stopped discerning the difference between reality and his own mind. The guards hadn’t been giving him his meds, after all. Maybe he was just hallucinating all of this.

But, if this was a hallucination, he would’ve woken up from this a long time ago. It wouldn’t have dragged out for so long. His heart wouldn’t feel so weak. It wouldn’t be so hard for him to breathe. And he wouldn’t be lying here, silently wishing that his heart would just hurry up and give up on him already.

This was reality, and he was on the brink of death.

And while it should’ve occurred to him to cling on, his entire body was so numb from the cold that he felt too numb to do much at all. Even his shaking was becoming quieter, more subdued. It wouldn’t be too long before his body ceased to move.

“ _Hey. Tobio. You alive, or what_?”

Kageyama made a concentrated effort to keep his eyes open when he heard that voice. Though it took a few minutes for the vision to form, he was eventually able to make out the face of his childhood friend amidst the shadows.

Daichi.

“Daichi… I thought you were dead,” Kageyama wisped out in response. His own voice was so feeble-sounding that he barely recognised it. It was laced with weakness, and it trembled as if it were afraid to venture out into the depths of this darkness around him.

“ _I am. That’s why you’re seeing me right now. And if you’re seeing me, that’s a sign you need to get it together otherwise you’re going to end up right here with me_.”

“Well, what am I meant to do? They’re trying to kill me in here.”

Daichi let out a heavy sigh. “ _Come on. Since when did you give up so easily? You’re the same guy who once took on an entire gang by yourself and won_.”

“…True. But I was on the outside. I had _everything_. Now, I’m nothing.”

“ _You realise that you’ve always had nothing, Tobio? Your power. It was superficial. People listened to you because you believed yourself to be powerful. If you weren’t a convincing leader, people would’ve flocked off to other gangs. But they stayed with Karasuno. Why? Because you believed in yourself. You believed in your power_ ,” Daichi told him. Now, he could feel those ghostly hands clasping his, almost as if trying to infuse him with warmth. And though Kageyama desperately wanted to remind himself that this wasn’t real and that he was just going insane, he just… didn’t.

Maybe this _was_ real.

After all, Kageyama never had the right words for himself. Daichi did. He always knew what to say.

He could feel the first hint of warmth now in the form of tears, pooling at his eyes and trickling down the sides of his temples.

“ _You need to believe in yourself, Tobio. If you stop believing in yourself, it’s over. You need to carry Karasuno to the end. It’s what you owe everyone_ ,” Daichi reminded him. Then, in a lower voice, he added, “ _and it’s what you owe me. You carry everyone to safety. Including Suga_.”

“You still love him, don’t you?”

“… _I never stopped_ ,” Daichi admitted. Although his tone was matter-of-fact, Kageyama could still feel the underlying pain in his voice. The longing. “ _Even from beyond the grave. I’ll always love that idiot with everything I’ve got. So you’d better keep him safe, since I can’t_.”

“I will,” Kageyama promised. “I won’t let you down, Daichi. Not again.”

“ _You’ve never let me down. Don’t let this be the first time_.”

Before Kageyama could beg Daichi to hang around for just a few moments longer, the grasp on his hands disappeared. The face in the shadows dissipated. And, just like that, Kageyama was alone again.

But, now, he could feel a warmth spreading in his chest. He wasn’t _really_ alone. Despite him being a cold and unforgiving human being, he had still known what it felt like to be valued by others. Loved by others. Cherished by others.

He wasn’t cold.

He was warm, just like anyone else.

“Hey, is someone in this cell?” Kageyama heard a new voice ask.

“Yes,” Kageyama rasped out. “I’m an inmate.”

“Open on 13, please,” the voice called out.

Moments later, the door opened to reveal his saviour. Light spilt into the room, burning Kageyama’s sensitive eyes, but as they slowly adjusted, he was able to make out certain features. Sky-blue hair with eyes to match. A neutral expression, though his eyebrows were knitted together in concern. And then, his badge. _Kuroko_.

“Are you able to move, inmate?” Kuroko asked, concern in his eyes.

“N-No. Can’t move,” Kageyama stammered out. “Too… too… too cold…”

Despite Kageyama’s best attempts to cling onto consciousness, it eventually eluded him.

***

The next time Kageyama came to, it was thankfully in a hospital bed. He was hooked up to an IV and just a metre away was what appeared to be the Shinzen equivalent of Takeda: a pink-haired girl in a doctor outfit. She turned to face him, her eyes lighting up when she saw that he was awake. Looking at the badge on her uniform, he could see that her name was ‘Momoi’.

“Kageyama-kun,” she said, approaching him with a bright smile. “Looks like you’re finally up, huh?”

Kageyama shrugged. “I guess.”

“So, what happened to you? Tetsu-kun — well, you probably know him as Kuroko but I call him Tetsu-kun ‘cause he’s my boyfriend — brought you here like this and I was like _oh my god, what happened to this poor guy_? And he was like ‘I don’t know, I found him like this’, and then I was like, _oh no! We need to get him some help straightaway_! And then Tetsu-kun — oh my God, he tilted his head _so_ adorably — was like, ‘yeah, that’s why I brought him to you’ and then I fell even _more_ in love with him and I—”

“Oi, Satsuki,” Aomine interjected, hovering in the doorway. “Get on with it. I’m sure the inmate doesn’t want to hear you salivate over Tetsu.”

“Hey! I am not _salivating_ ,” Momoi fired back, her lips forming into a slight pout as she shooed Aomine away with one hand. She kept her eyes on Kageyama, who had ended up tuning out her babbling for the most part. “Anyway… what happened to you? How’d you end up in such a bad state?”

As tempting as it was to tell the truth, Kageyama could see the menacing glint in Aomine’s eyes as he continued to hover by the doorway. He was daring Kageyama to tell the truth just so he could get his ass beat the second he set foot out of the infirmary.

Kageyama heaved out a sigh before saying, “I was thrown into solitary for defiant behaviour by Aomine-san. I’m meant to be on meds for my depression, but I wasn’t getting access to those. I became particularly depressive while locked up, so I tried to drown myself in the toilet. That’s why I was so wet and cold when I came here.”

“Really? I don’t think there’s enough water in those toilets to drench you the way you were when you got here. And even if there was, your body temperature was _thirty-four degrees_ ,” Momoi observed, a little concerned. “The normal body temperature is _thirty-seven_. I don’t know what toilet water you’re dunking yourself in, but there is no room temperature water out there that can bring your temperature down by three entire degrees. Are you _sure_ there was no foul play on the part of the guards?”

Kageyama nodded his head. “Positive. I’ve always been naturally colder than most people.”

Seemingly satisfied by his response, Momoi turned her attention towards Aomine, both hands poised on her hips before saying, “ _Dai-chan_ , why the hell didn’t you or any of the others bring this inmate down for his meds? Even if he’s in solitary, he still needs his meds.”

“He’s a new transfer,” Aomine replied. “It took a few days for the official documents to come through from Fukurodani. None of us knew he needed meds.”

“Really? Well, that’s sloppy of them,” Momoi replied, a frown etched onto her lips. Meanwhile, Kageyama silently brooded to himself. He’d thought that Towada had been bad, but Aomine was a whole different beast. The scariest people in life were those that couldn’t be manipulated, and right now, Aomine seemed to have no weak spots whatsoever.

And, by the looks of it, Momoi and Aomine seemed to be quite close. He would be able to paint her perception of him… which _wasn’t_ a good thing. While they’d planned a break-out plan for Shinzen in the case they got captured, it had all been fucked right up the ass the second these asshole guards had decided to split them up into different blocks. It would be near impossible to coordinate the synchronised response required to break out of a prison like Shinzen.

Kageyama needed an insider, and Momoi had to be his way in. He needed to figure out a way to manipulate Momoi into working with him… and judging by just how open she was with her thoughts and feelings, she would be easy to read. If Kageyama could read her, he would be able to change the script. And if he could change the script, he would be one step closer to getting the fuck out of prison. Sure, he didn’t know what the hell was going to happen when he was freely able to walk around outdoors without having to worry about being called in for count, but until the time came, his prime concern would be escape and nothing more.

“Dai-chan! Go _away_ ,” Momoi complained, trying to swat Aomine away from her desk. He was glancing over at the sheets despite Momoi’s insistent hand-waving. “These documents are confidential. And you’re not even supposed to be in here. You’re supposed to wait for the inmate _outside_.”

“You do realise he’s in here for multiple counts of murder? I’m keeping you safe.”

Momoi still pushed him out of the room anyway, closing the door with a triumphant grin once she’d succeeded. Then, turning her head back towards Kageyama, she began to approach him with his usual dosage of Prozac.

“So sorry about the inconvenience,” she burbled. “From now on, you’ll come down here at noon every day to take your meds. I’m going to keep you in here for another twenty-four hours to make sure your body returns to normal temperature levels, and then you’ll be back in the cells. Do you know which cell you’ve been assigned to yet?”

Kageyama shook his head.

Momoi flounced over to the door and edged it open to ask Aomine an inaudible question, and a few moments later, she returned to brightly inform him that he’d been assigned to Block A.

“How is that block?” Kageyama asked. “Is it alright?”

“I wish I could say yes, but… Block A is reserved specifically for the worst of the worst. Shinzen prefers to keep all the trouble-makers in one spot,” Momoi explained. “On the other end, Block D is… well, what do the inmates call it again?”

“Heaven?” Kageyama filled.

“Yeah. Heaven,” Momoi affirmed. “Block B and C don’t have too many differences. We refer to it as ‘gen pop’. The inmates will probably have their own reasons behind the division between Block B and C, but on an administrative level, they’re virtually the same.”

“So… uh… can I move to gen pop then?”

“Yep! You can put in a transfer request through Aomine-kun,” she peppily informed him.

_Well, fuck_. It looked like he’d be stuck in Block A for the foreseeable future. Hell, why had he even bothered asking? Aomine had clearly twisted the wires to make sure that he would end up in Block A. Sure, it was likely that he could end up being feared due to the sheer number of crimes he’d committed, but… he had the reputation of being a ‘Fukurodani fairy’ now.

Perhaps this wasn’t going to go all so well for him after all.

“Okay,” Kageyama said, tentatively switching topics. “Is there any opportunity for me to get work around this place?”

“Yep! You can work on book duty, mopping and litter picking. We pay fifty yen an hour, the sum of which all gets credited to you once your sentence is up.”

_Well, **that** certainly sounded like a massive amount of money(!)_

“Great,” Kageyama commented, though he couldn’t quite muster up as much enthusiasm as his words might’ve implied. “How do I get in on that?”

“Again, Aomine-kun handles assignments. You’re better off asking him.”

_Damnit_. Another dead end.

“Thanks,” Kageyama said, nodding his head.

“No problem!” Then, hoisting a cup right into his face, she sang, “Now, it’s time for you to take your meds. Open up wide…”


	2. To Torment a Man

Chapter Two: To Torment a Man

“Inmates! You have fifteen minutes left on the yard!”

Forever the tormenter, Aomine stood at the centre of the yard with a whistle in his hand which he liked to blow periodically. He made a habit of yelling especially at the Karasuno members, although given his behaviour since they’d arrived at Shinzen, they’d come to expect that kind of habit from him. Kageyama rolled his eyes while looking over at Suga, who was standing next to him.

They’d thankfully been placed in Block A together, along with Nishinoya. While some minor Nekoma members had ended up with them too, they had more or less severed their ties with gang life entirely and declared that there was no way they were going to get themselves even _more_ extra time and extra harassment from the guards and inmates by associating themselves with Karasuno.

So, it was just those three. And their cells were so far apart that they couldn’t even communicate with one another. They couldn’t get jobs doing things around the prison due to Aomine’s personal vendetta against the ‘Fukurodani fairies’.

And, by the looks of it, Aomine wasn’t the only one with a vendetta.

“Oi, pretty boy,” one muscular, tattooed guy sneered, coming right up in his face. Kageyama stumbled back until he was pressed right up against the wall. “You might be used to being a little celebrity boy up in Fukurodani. The ‘famous leader’ of Karasuno. But, we ain’t about that life here. We don’t like there being too much attention on us. And your presence here already puts too much attention on the rest of us. You’d do well to put your ass right back in solitary, or we’ll do it for you.”

Three other muscular guys approached behind the leader, and though Kageyama had never thought he would genuinely find himself fearing other people, he was beginning to realise just how out of his depth he was. He had no way of seizing the reins of control in this place. Goddamnit, he was about to get his ass beaten—

“Oi.”

Kageyama turned his head, throat drying up when he realised he was staring at none other than Futamata. A member of the Johzenji.

“Guys, lay off. These assholes are mine,” Futamata declared.

While Kageyama had been expecting those muscular guys to wring up Futamata’s skinny body like he was a twig, surprisingly enough, they nodded and backed off as requested. Kageyama and Suga watched their retreat with identical expressions of shock before glancing back over at Futamata, who had now approached them with folded arms.

“So, you’re finally here. Asshole. We’ve been waiting for this moment for so long.”

Behind him emerged a second man with dark hair and dark eyes.

“Remember me?” he said, his voice just as dark as the rest of him.

When Kageyama wasn’t forthcoming with any sort of response, the unidentified man continued to speak. “I’m Izaki. The Johzenji member you set up to rot in here.”

“Listen, guys,” Kageyama heard Suga say. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“We haven’t got any beef with you,” Bobata said, glancing in Suga’s direction. “You and the cook are fine. Our beef is with this wankstain right here.”

“Sorry, but this ‘wankstain’ is very important to me, so if you’ve got beef with him, you’ve got beef with me,” Suga declared, anchoring himself right next to Kageyama.

“And me!” Nishinoya declared, yelling out “Rolling Thunder!” before rolling right into the scene to put a physical barrier between Kageyama and Bobata. Though Kageyama would’ve rolled his eyes at the stunt in any other situation, it had the effect of making him feel all warm inside.

Daichi was right.

As long as he believed in himself, everyone else would.

“What? Do you want me to _apologise_ or something?” Kageyama asked, darkness beginning to leak into his tone. The look on his face was intimidating enough to elicit an expression of genuine shock on Izaki’s face. And though Bobata was remaining impassive, Kageyama could tell that Bobata hadn’t escaped his glare unscathed. His gaze wasn’t meeting Kageyama’s now, and his stance wasn’t quite so sure.

“No. We want you to know we’re going to make your life a living hell in here. You might’ve been the top dogs back at Fukurodani. But, here?” A sneer formed on Izaki’s lips. “You’re nothing but pieces of dog shit beneath our shoes.”

“Ah, yes. Because I’m really going to accept critique from a gang of rapists.”

“Don’t act like you’re on the moral high ground,” Bobata growled, looking as if he were one second away from blasting Kageyama in the face with his fist. The only thing preventing him was Nishinoya, who was still blocking his path. “Yes, we fucked up. We took advantage of our power and used it for bad. But we acknowledge that. We all pleaded guilty in court; we all accepted the punishment handed down to us by the judge. We have done our _best_ to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. We have minded our business, reflected on our crimes and tried to bide our time. But, what about you Karasuno assholes, huh? You strut around thinking you’re better than everyone else because you’re all a bunch of sociopaths and psychopaths and sadists but _really_ , you’re even worse than all of us because you don’t even _see_ that you’re bad people. You genuinely believe that you deserve to have power over us when you don’t even have power over yourselves. You lack restraint. You’re all nothing but a bunch of broken killing machines.”

“If you know that, then why are you standing here?” Kageyama leaned forwards, a chillingly dark look on his face as he whispered, “If I’m so broken, I might end up killing you any second. I’m in here for life. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

“Tobio, for God’s sake, you literally _just_ got out of solitary,” Suga complained. “Stop threatening people.”

“What? It’s not like he’s going to snitch, is he?”

“You don’t scare me anymore,” Bobata declared, taking a step back as he stared back defiantly at Kageyama. “I protected you all from those muscular guys this time around. But, next time? I’ll let them devour you alive. C’mon, Izaki. Let’s go.”

On that note, they strode away, allowing Nishinoya to finally break his defensive pose so that he could sit up against the wall of the prison. Suga and Kageyama slid down to join him, watching out across the yard. The muscular men from earlier were lifting weights; there were a set of benches where a dominant-looking man sat, surrounded by several younger-looking men; there were some tires where a brainy group of men were gathered, poring over their individual books. And there were little clusters on their own — some staring up at the sky while lying in the grass, some having rap battles in their own little spot and others simply pressed right up against the wire fence, fingers laced through as if yearning for the outside world.

“I was thinking,” Suga began. “It’s only been a week since we got here, but it feels like a month.”

“A week, huh?” Kageyama let out a low whistle.

“Inmate! If you whistle again, it’s the hole for you!”

Kageyama gritted his teeth together, but nodded at Aomine before glancing to his right where Nishinoya was sitting. His dyed lock of hair had disappeared — it had been cut off by Haizaki, the shittier and even more reprehensible version of Aomine. While Aomine was only an asshole to them specifically, most likely to ‘humble’ them following their five-star experience in Fukurodani, Haizaki was an asshole for the sake of it. He’d swiped Nishinoya’s lock of hair long ago as a symbol of victory.

And now, without his bright lock of hair, Nishinoya looked worn out, tired. Just like the rest of them.

“Say, Noya,” Kageyama hissed, “now would be a great time for you to go Michael Scofield on us…”

Nishinoya shook his head. “In this place? Shinzen makes Fukurodani look like a playground. Not to mention, all the guards are armed with massive guns. We try and run away, we get shot,” he hissed, miming gun popping actions with his hands. “ _Shot_ ,” he repeated, putting his finger guns right in Kageyama’s face.

“I get it, I get it.”

“Inmates! Get the fuck off that wall before I come over there and make you!”

Kageyama, Nishinoya and Suga sighed as they got to their feet as ordered and moved away from the wall, standing a short distance away from the wall. Aomine cast a sneer in their direction before moving over to the muscular inmates, engaging in what seemed to be a normal conversation.

_Asshole_.

“This is hell,” Kageyama said in a hushed tone.

“Hell’s preferential to this place,” Suga said, letting out a heavy sigh. “We can’t even talk to Nekoma. They’re in a different time slot to us. God, I don’t know how we’re meant to get out of here together when we have no idea what’s going on. We need to find a way of seeing each other.”

“How? We get let out of our cells three times a day.”

Suga furrowed his eyebrows at Kageyama. “Three?”

“…Yeah,” Kageyama said, slowly nodding his head. “Once for morning count. Once to go to the infirmary. And once for evening count.”

“That’s the key,” Suga declared, a light shining in his eyes. “The infirmary.”

“No, that won’t work. They’ll get suspicious if we all suddenly end up in the infirmary together. Remember, there’s at least fourteen of us here. And that’s assuming all fourteen still want to get out of here,” Kageyama hissed, making sure to keep his voice as low as was humanly possible. “A couple of the Nekoma guys already ditched the plan. And Yamaguchi didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about breaking out either… and besides, even if the three of us are able to get there, we have no way of sending a message to everyone else to get in the infirmary. We need to get one of the guards on our side.”

Suga glanced over at Aomine before murmuring, “Yup. Not happening.”

“So… uh… we’re not breaking out then?” Nishinoya asked.

“Not for the foreseeable future,” Suga replied, heaving out a heavy sigh as he reached one hand up to the sky. “God, how I miss freedom. I thought I’d missed it back at Fukurodani, but _God_ , we really did have it easy. Being able to go outside whenever we wanted. Now, they give us an hour of sun and call that ‘freedom’.”

“We don’t even have the freedom to lean against a fucking wall,” Nishinoya grumbled, clearly disgruntled by the whole situation. “Man, I hate that Aomine guy. I wish he would fall off a cliff the same way Guess Monster did. C’mon, Kageyama, can’t you work some of your Kageyama magic?” Then, with a dark look in his eyes and with dramatic wiggly fingers, he glowered in his best Kageyama impression, “ _Abracadabra-diddily-doo, now it’s time to meet your doom_.”

“ _Abracadabra-diddily-doo_?” Suga burst into raucous laughter.

“Inmates! Stop being so happy!”

Their fun was brought to an abrupt end by Aomine’s interjection, leading the three of them to heave out simultaneous sighs as they stared up at the sky, longing for a world where they were no longer bound by cuffs and wire fences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, quick note: so, the character called "Izaki" is actually canonically named "IzakA" and I've been spelling it wrong for the past two stories (yes, major facepalm here... tbf it's a minor detail since he doesn't actually APPEAR until now but STILL) but honestly it's too late to change it so yeah he's Izaki now, enjoy the new name ♥


	3. To Be Lovesick

Chapter Three: To Be Lovesick

Tsukishima, unlike the others, was doing absolutely _nothing_. Denied of his yard time for ‘looking at Aomine the wrong way’, he was trapped in his cell with nothing but his thoughts. He’d spent so much time pacing around this cell of his that he was pretty sure he was beginning to look like a skeleton. He could feel his ribs whenever he sucked in his stomach, and he doubted that he would be able to get any meat on his bones anytime soon. Breakfast and dinner didn’t go down his throat, but rather that of the big muscly guy who would always, without fail, come and steal his food in the cafeteria every single day. The only meal he could rely on these days was lunch. Unfortunately enough, it was the same story for everyone else who was in Block B with him: Ennoshita, Tanaka, Asahi and Yamamoto.

Even when Tsukishima _had_ been on the yard, he’d been stuck with nothing but himself for company. Never having liked Ennoshita all that much, he made sure to keep his distance. Tanaka and Yamamoto were two loud, raucous idiots that made him want to stab his eardrums out. And while Asahi was nice, his sheer fragility never failed to irritate Tsukishima. How someone that fragile had ended up joining one of the most notorious Japanese gangs, Tsukishima really didn’t know.

And to be honest, he didn’t really care.

The only thing he cared about right now was holding onto his sanity. He knew Kageyama would be in Block A coming up with some sort of escape plan. Even if he couldn’t see it happening, he had to believe that it was happening. Tsukishima still identified as a Karasuno member, even now, because he believed in their gang. He believed that Kageyama would get out of his slump and lead them all to safety. Even if he had been a fucking idiot with his little stunt in the shower room, Tsukishima was praying that there was some sort of bigger reason behind Kageyama’s actions.

He needed to get out of here.

He needed to see Yamaguchi again.

He needed to see Kuroo again. Oh _God_ , did he miss that rooster-haired idiot of his. He needed to figure something out, damnit. Something.

_Come on, think. You’re Jigsaw. What would Jigsaw do in order to maintain his vision of a beautiful world?_

That was what Tsukishima kept asking himself. But no matter how many times he asked, the Jigsaw inside of him didn’t respond. It was almost as if Jigsaw had curled up and died inside of him.

He clicked his tongue in irritation as he thought about how he’d spent his teenage years cultivating and nurturing Jigsaw, only for the fucker to die when he needed him the most. Those sadistic thoughts… they should’ve just rolled off his tongue like _that_ , but they just weren’t coming to him.

_When did Jigsaw abandon him?_

He’d lived his entire life wanting to get back at some invisible being. Getting back at the world. Not being wanted by his parents, not being wanted by _anyone_ , being arrested by the same guy that had once claimed to love him… it was _bullshit_.

But then he’d met Kuroo and it was as if he’d reverted to the innocent guy he used to be before discovering these films and sinking further into his animosity towards the world he lived in. Smiling, laughing, blushing… they were all things he never would’ve done during his time as Jigsaw.

Damnit. He’d changed, hadn’t he?

He’d changed after meeting Kuroo and now he couldn’t be the Jigsaw he wanted to be.

God-fucking- _damnit_. He’d sacrificed so much in his pursuit of becoming Jigsaw. He’d left his home town behind. He’d left behind the chance of ever reconciling with his family. And he’d left behind his freedom when Sakunami had turned up in front of him with those _goddamn handcuffs_ like they hadn’t been lovers once upon a time.

_“You have the right to be silent.”_

_“Have fun rotting behind bars, Jigsaw. If the prisoners don’t kill you, I hope the guilt does.”_

The doors slamming shut in his face. The bumpy roads, the manic laughing. _He’d been caught_. What kind of sick joke was that meant to be? How had someone as brilliant as _him_ ended up in the hands of Japan’s police force? It was a joke! A joke!

And to top off this cruel, sick joke, he’d been stripped of his Jigsaw persona.

“But _why_?” Tsukishima growled out, still oh-so-confused about just what had changed inside of him. If he wasn’t Jigsaw, surely that meant he was on the verge of losing his identity as ‘Karasuno’s sadist’. It was that identity which had given him a home. Used to being an outsider his whole life, it was as Jigsaw that he was invited to join Karasuno and joined forces with Yamaguchi. The Karasuno members had accepted him as one of their own; they’d treated him like family — hell, they’d valued him more than his actual family did.

Perhaps it was because they accepted him that he didn’t feel like he _had_ to be Jigsaw anymore. After all, his desire to be Jigsaw had arisen from his hatred of the world and those around him and the attitudes of the very society he lived in. Had he not joined Karasuno, he would still be wasting away in that lurid fantasy of his, believing that he and he alone was responsible for handing down justice to those who deserved it.

_Justice_.

What even was justice? The same ones who had paraded around that dumb term ‘justice’ were the ones who had locked him up in this piece of shit prison. These Shinzen guards and Fukurodani C.Os broke all the rules and abused their powers and yet there was nobody policing them, nobody punishing them. They were treated like criminals _by_ criminals, but because they were in prison, nobody cared.

Not. One. Person. _Cared_.

And then he’d met Kuroo Tetsurou.

Kuroo Tetsurou, with his teasing words.

They’d never interacted much on the outside — Kuroo had mainly dealt with Kageyama, and while Kuroo had tried to flirt with him from time-to-time, Tsukishima had fallen into the habit of curving all his attempts time and time again. But then, they’d ended up inside together, and when caged in, it became impossible to escape Kuroo all of a sudden.

And, in all honesty… Tsukishima had found himself minding less and less.

_“Love makes you do crazy things, Tsukki.”_

_“You’re so hot when you’re angry.”_

_“Say, Tsukki. Do you realise that you sound like a clock when you do all that tongue clicking?”_

Sometimes, those teasing words of his would go from being overly aggravating to being sweet to the point that Tsukishima’s face would flush and his brain would stutter. (And perhaps his dick would get hard. _Perhaps_.)

_“That’s way too heavy for you. Let me carry it.”_

_“I want to ravage you, right now.”_

_“I want your name on my lips and nothing else, Tsukishima.”_

And then there were the things Kuroo would say which would make Tsukishima’s heart skip a beat. (And not out of irritation. This time, it was out of some sort of fluffy feeling that he couldn’t identify.)

_“I’m serious about you. I want to make it work.”_

_“You let everyone think you’re a sadist, but you’re honestly such a cutie.”_

_“Kageyama’s not capable of love. No gay man could resist you, I’ll tell you that.”_

Actually, now that Tsukishima thought about it, Kuroo had _technically_ been insulting Kageyama there. Despite Tsukishima’s vehement defence of all things Kageyama, he hadn’t even noticed until this very moment. He’d only noticed the look that Kuroo had given him as he spoke the words, the earnest tone of his voice, _his voice_. And then how they’d kissed, how the heavy load on Tsukishima’s shoulders slowly began to lift. A lifetime’s worth of regrets alleviated by one kiss.

But then, there were the hurtful words that Kuroo Tetsurou would say.

_“How can you pledge allegiance to someone like Kageyama?”_

_“Are you forgetting how he used you?!”_

Kageyama hadn’t used him. Kageyama had given him a home. But Kuroo didn’t know that. All Kuroo knew was his own resentment for Kageyama, resentment that Tsukishima had given Kageyama his complete and utter loyalty instead of _him_. Kuroo, the one who didn’t play with Tsukishima’s feelings the same way that Kageyama had. _But Kageyama hadn’t even realised that Tsukishima had had feelings for him, so how could he have used Tsukishima like Kuroo had claimed?_

Or, was Kuroo just giving a voice to Tsukishima’s innermost doubts?

_“He just sees you as an annoying little puppy.”_

_“You know he’s going to discard you later, right?”_

Kuroo Tetsurou, touching him as Tsukishima leaned into that broad chest and listened to him sing their song. Kuroo, dotting kisses on his neck, his _earlobe_ , as he sung in that low voice. The timbre of his voice, just as sensual as it had been the first time Kuroo had sung to him.

_“Can you hear my heartbeat? Tired of feeling never enough. I close my eyes and tell myself that my dreams will come true.”_

He’d always denied his singing skills, but Kuroo truly had a talent when it came to voices. He was insanely talented at doing voice impersonations (he’d already figured out Tsukishima’s tired vocals and Towada’s too-loud groany way of speaking) so it only made sense that he’d be good at singing too.

_“There'll be no more darkness. When you believe in yourself, you are unstoppable. Where your destiny lies, dancing on the blades…”_

Kuroo twirled him around as if the two of them were dancing on ice. Tsukishima glided into his body, his heart doing pirouettes as their heat magnified, Kuroo’s hands entangling their way into his hair. Gently working their way through the knots, making it smooth and tamed just as it had been during his childhood…

_“You set my heart on fire… Don’t stop us now, the moment of truth…”_

Kuroo would tease him, tell him to be more enthusiastic when he was singing. And just because Kuroo looked so happy whenever Tsukishima put some effort into it, he would. He liked hearing Kuroo tell him just how beautiful his voice was.

_“We were born to have sex in the cabbage field!”_

As much as Tsukishima wanted to keep living in that exact moment with Kuroo, pressed up against him, touching him, _feeling_ him, he was crying so hard that he’d ended up flinging himself right back into the reality of the situation. He was slumped up against the wall, bawling his eyes out as he thought about how empty his heart felt, how cold his body was; how much he _craved_ the idea of Kuroo being near him, with him, _on_ him. He’d messed everything up with Kuroo and now he couldn’t even _tell Kuroo how he felt_ and it sucked so goddamn hard because the truth was that he loved him and—

_Wait_. He loved him?

_Love_. Tsukishima had always thrown the term around, but _was this it_?

He’d never felt so serious about it until now.

And yet, when he thought about Kuroo, he felt as if his heart would practically _dance_ to the cadence of the name itself. _Kuroo_. His cheeks would light up like fireworks on the Fourth of July and he couldn’t do _anything_ about it. Kuroo was like a constant reminder in his brain, like one of those annoying popups on a computer that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he clicked. He’d try to click the ‘X’, but then the popup would freeze and eventually, Tsukishima would have to accept that the popup was there to stay.

That was Kuroo. He’d stuck himself onto Tsukishima, and now, Tsukishima couldn’t find Jigsaw inside of him because there was too much love residing in this goddamn body of his.

He couldn’t rely on his sadism anymore. But… he _could_ rely on his tech skills. Since this was such a high-tech prison in comparison to Fukurodani, which hadn’t even _bothered_ with cameras for a good amount of years, that meant it relied heavily on things like computers and security systems. If Tsukishima could get his hands on a device, he could control the prison himself. All he had to do was hack into the system and then he’d have the world (okay, perhaps an exaggeration but at this point that was how it genuinely felt) in his hands.

He smiled, realising that Kuroo was the reason he’d thought of this in the first place, but it quickly became a frown when he realised that he had no way of getting his hands on a cell phone, let alone a _laptop_.

_Goddamnit_. He wouldn’t be able to pull off anything without a guard on the inside that could help him. While Aomine clearly detested him and while Haizaki was a dick to pretty much all of the inmates, the other guards seemed to be pretty neutral. By the looks of it, the red-haired guard (Kagami? Tsukishima was pretty sure that was his name) was the newest addition to the team, judging by how he wasn’t quite as tough on the inmates as everyone else.

But, that didn’t mean Kagami would fall prey to manipulation — his muscles made him twice Tsukishima’s size and Tsukishima suspected that if pushed to his limits, Kagami’s temper could become just as fiery as Aomine’s.

Kuroko, on the other hand… Tsukishima wasn’t quite sure what to say about him. Most of the time, it was as if he wasn’t even in the room. But then if problems arose in the cafeteria, he would be there in a flash, calmly diffusing the situation. He seemed to be the most level-headed guard in the building, but by the looks of it, that would make him the hardest one to manipulate.

Fuck. Unless there was some secret fifth guard that he could manipulate, he was out of luck.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Tsukishima wiped his tears away and leaned his head up against the wall, staring hard at the fluorescent lights above him. He didn’t even have a pleasure as simple as natural light in this room. Just stupid shitty lights.

_“We don’t need to be in these gangs, do we? We’ve been doing just fine working on the garden and spending time together, right?”_

“You were right,” Tsukishima whispered in response to the Kuroo in his head. “I’m sorry. You were right.”

Now, he _had_ to break free. But when he did… he was going to leave his past behind for good. Tsukishima and Kuroo had spent many early mornings in the garden talking about the places they would go to (or rather, Kuroo had kept on pronouncing place names wrong while Tsukishima corrected him) and while Tsukishima had seen the prospect of freedom as beyond realistic for notorious criminals like them… it was beginning to look like a possibility.

All he had to do was manipulate one guard. One.

If he could get his hands on a laptop, he’d be able to access the millions upon millions that Karasuno had accrued before getting thrown in prison. The Japanese police force hadn’t been able to seize their funds, despite recruiting the best of the best to track down the location of their money. The only person capable of accessing that money was Tsukishima, being the computer genius he was.

“ _Hey, Tsukki. Imagine, if you hadn’t been Jigsaw, you might’ve been earning top dollar in some fancy American company. Like Tesla_ ,” Kuroo had joked, a smile playing on his lips as he swung Tsukishima into his arms. “ _And I’d be your sexy assistant. Blowing you off underneath the desk while you have video conferences_.”

“God, that would’ve been nice,” Tsukishima admitted, letting out a wistful sigh as he allowed himself to imagine what could’ve been. It wasn’t the ridiculously long prison sentence that had made him regret being Jigsaw. It wasn’t the thought of the lives he’d ruined through being Jigsaw. It wasn’t even Saku’s rejection that had made him regret being Jigsaw.

No. It was Kuroo that made him regret every last second of it.

And even as he slumped his head against the wall and slowly began to doze off, he didn’t stop regretting his decision. Nor did he stop thinking of Kuroo. No, his brain was torturing him, constantly showing him all of his favourite times with Kuroo as if it were some sort of movie showcase.

***

“ _I told you that you shouldn’t have fucked me on the altar_ ,” Tsukishima grumbled as he walked away from the chapel with Kuroo alongside him. “ _But you don’t listen to me_.”

“ _I do_ ,” Kuroo insisted, swinging Tsukishima into his arms and holding him as if he were a baby. “ _I listened to each and every last one of your moans last night_.”

“ _Kuroo_!” Tsukishima had flushed a bright red. “ _Put me down! I’m not a baby, I’m Jigsaw_!”

“ _Who knew Jigsaw would look so cute while blushing_?” Kuroo let him go as requested, but he didn’t miss his chance to slap Tsukishima’s ass in the process. Despite the dark glare marring Tsukishima’s face, Kuroo didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. If anything, he was amused.

“ _You’re such a simpleton_ ,” Tsukishima had muttered, stomping off towards the garden. “ _Don’t talk to me_.”

Kuroo came behind him and wrapped his arms around Tsukishima’s torso, resting his hands on his chest. Tsukishima was so shocked by the action that he stopped walking. Kuroo remained there for a few moments, taking in Tsukishima’s scent. Then, he began to sing a song, low and quiet against Tsukishima’s ear.

“ _Can you hear my heartbeat? Tired of feeling never enough. I close my eyes_ …” He blew warm air against Tsukishima’s earlobe, earning himself a slight chuckle from Tsukishima. “… _and tell myself that my dreams will come true_.”

He planted a kiss on Tsukishima’s neck, then on his earlobe. Tsukishima shivered at the contact, but the sigh he let out was more than enough evidence of his satisfaction.

“ _There’ll be no more darkness. When you believe in yourself, you are unstoppable. Where your destiny lies, dancing on the blades_ …”

Kuroo twirled Tsukishima around so that they were facing one another. And just like that, their gazes clashed. He could see Kuroo’s overt delight at the hunger which had undoubtedly etched itself into his facial expression, the want clawing out at Kuroo through a pair of bright golden eyes.

“ _You set my heart on fire_ ,” Tsukishima whispered, finishing the song lyric for him. “ _Don’t stop us now, the moment of truth_ …”

“ _We were born to have sex in the cabbage field_!”

Tsukishima rolled his eyes, although there was a smile that tugged at his lips as he murmured, “ _You just had to kill the mood, huh_?”

Kuroo smiled, a genuine smile that lit up his eyes. “ _Doesn’t change the fact that your heart’s still on fire. Hey, should I extinguish it for you_?”

Tsukishima couldn’t help himself when he leaned into Kuroo’s lips, softness against slightly chapped lips, passion against passion, hands sliding up torsos and entangling themselves in blonde tresses, dark locks; whispers of “Tsukki” and “Kuroo” amongst many other things as the two stumbled towards the garden. While they had been two touches away from practically dry-fucking each other in broad daylight, Tsukishima was unexpectedly brought down by a stray shovel lying on the ground. He fell back, and Kuroo not exactly being known for his grace, fell down right with him. The passion dissipated as they both laughed amongst themselves, staring into one another’s eyes as if sharing a silent conversation.

When the laughter faded, Kuroo murmured, “This really echoes our first _encounter_ , huh?”

Tsukishima rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

But even as the words left his mouth, he knew they weren’t true. It didn’t matter how embarrassing and annoying and _filthy_ Kuroo could be, he never wanted Kuroo to stop speaking. He wanted to hear that voice in his ear at night, those gentle _Tsukkis_ and touches which really would set Tsukishima’s heart on fire.

***

“Kuroo? You there?”

Kuroo sat up with a start, realising that Yaku was waving a hand in front of his face. They were on the yard, and while the fresh air was like a respite from the stuffiness of sweaty inmates mixed with a lingering smell of fish from the cafeteria, he wasn’t enjoying it as much as he would’ve liked.

“I’m fine,” Kuroo replied, though he knew he didn’t sound all that convinced. “Just thinking about Tsukki.”

While Yaku normally would’ve teased him or told him to stop being horny, there was a look of understanding in his eyes as he planted himself on the grass alongside him and continued to stare up at the blue sky. Just a small distance away was the sun, bright and hot like Tsukishima’s eyes. Tsukishima’s hair.

Even now, if Kuroo reached up, he felt as if his hands could entangle themselves within blonde tufts of hair, pulling Tsukishima’s lips down to his as he wrapped his legs around Tsukishima’s narrow torso. Pushed him down onto the grass. Dove one hand towards his trousers, tugging them down until his boxers were showing, and then pulling Tsukishima’s dick out.

And then they’d touch each other in the sun, Kuroo would keep on jerking and jerking while Tsukishima did the same, soft hand gliding up and down Kuroo’s cock. They’d swallow each other’s moans and when Kuroo’s hand moved faster, _harder_ , Tsukishima’s moans would become breathier to the point where Kuroo’s lips weren’t enough to contain them. Kuroo would buck his hips into Tsukishima’s grasp, Tsukishima’s hips would echo the action, and they’d reach their climax together, overcome by desire and want for each other.

And then, like a fading ray of light, Tsukishima would whisper, “Love you.”

But before Kuroo could respond in kind, he would be gone. Having retreated behind the nearest cloud, there was not a single person who knew when Tsukishima would next return for him. Or if Tsukishima would _ever_ return for him.

Once they were placed in different blocks, it was final. Kuroo wouldn’t be seeing Tsukishima for a long time. Not in the cafeteria, not in the yard and not in his cell. The only place he could see Tsukishima now was in his thoughts, in his dreams, in the sky. He yearned for the sun to come back out, to save him from this despondency he felt, but then—

“Inmates! Line your asses up! Yard time’s over!”

Kuroo was almost tempted to ignore the order and lie here, just so he could tell Tsukishima, “I waited for you.”

But Yaku, Kenma, Yamaguchi and Kinoshita all came to drag him up to his feet, Kinoshita whispering that he needed to get it together while Yamaguchi gently patted him on the back. Kuroo nodded, though he wasn’t really hearing anyone. Not anymore. They could pretend to understand, but they didn’t _really_ get it. They didn’t get what it felt like to miss the sun.

God, Kuroo just wanted his sun back.


	4. To Call Him Crazy

Chapter Four: To Call Him Crazy

Hinata swayed with the wind, watching the pseudo-circus that was taking place around him. There were men running around as if they were children, swinging butterfly nets and giggling. There was a woman with ratty hair that was cradling a baby doll in her hands, talking to it as if it were real. There was a man who believed he was a dog, barking on all fours while his ‘owner’ walked around with him on a leash. Wherever he looked, there were blatant displays of broken people, so mentally broken they probably didn’t even realise where they were.

Clinging to his sanity had been hard when he was constantly treated as if he were like all of these other people around him. Believing that he was younger than his actual age, believing that he was the king of the world or believing that he had changed to an entirely different species. No, no, no.

He’d had a moment of weakness and tried to kill himself.

Not because he’d wanted to die. No, that was far from the reason why. He’d done it in a bid to protect Natsu’s life. Her life was worth so much more than his. She was driven and accomplished and smarter than him — certainly smart enough to stay far away from all this gang bullshit that had gotten him locked up here — so he had to do whatever he could to protect her, no matter what.

There was a reason he’d gone to the Karasuno bathroom. Subconsciously, he’d known that there was no way he would die. He’d known that he would end up getting saved, even if his mental functions had been mired by sorrow at the time. And he’d known that he would end up getting thrown in Aoba Johsai sooner than later.

That wasn’t a bad thing.

No, no, no. Quite the opposite.

Back in Fukurodani, power had been dependent on who you were. What you’d done. How loyal you were to your gang.

In Aoba Johsai, however? Power was measured by your level of sanity. And, as it just so happened, Hinata was brimming with sanity. One thing that Aoba Johsai had given him was time. Lots and lots of time. And, during this time, he’d thought to himself a lot about everything that had happened. He’d thought about Kageyama, the Johzenji, his sister.

And, where had all his thinking taken him?

He’d come to the bitter realisation that he couldn’t be with Kageyama. Even if his suspicions were true and the Johzenji were in fact alive, there was no love out there that could justify him staying with the man who had tried to destroy the gang that had accepted him when no-one else would. The gang who had loved him, cherished him, included him at a time when he’d been at his weakest.

While he didn’t doubt that Kageyama loved him, Kageyama’s way of love was too dark. Too twisted. And though it hurt Hinata to let go, one full month of waiting like a sitting duck in this place had only steeled his resolve. In a different life where Kageyama had grown up normally and learned to process his emotions healthily, it might’ve worked.

But, Hinata had learned the hard way that he should’ve listened when Kageyama had told him to stay away. He hadn’t listened, and it had resulted in him being manipulated into leaving his best friends behind.

And now, even though he wasn’t sure if the Johzenji were alive or if he was just clinging onto false hope, there was something in his heart that was telling him that Terushima was still there. Bobata was still there. All the others were still there, waiting for him back in the Johzenji dorm with a fresh set of Uno cards.

He had to change the script somehow. He had to.

But, he would only be able to do that once he found a way out of this place.

“You know, you’re the only person I can seem to hold a coherent conversation with in this place. You’re different from everyone else.”

Hinata turned to face the guard next to him, Imaizumi. Imaizumi had become a best friend of sorts in this place. Having formed a bond ever since realising they were doppelgangers to the point that only their starkly different uniforms distinguished one from the other, Imaizumi had looked out for him during his time in this place.

“Well, like I’ve already told you. I was put in here because I knew the truth about Aida. You know, the Fukurodani warden.”

At that, a look of surprise flashed in Imaizumi’s eyes. “Wait, you’re from Fukurodani?”

Hinata nodded, a little mystified by his sudden response. “Why?”

“There was proof of massive corruption there. It’s been all over the news. They’re currently reviewing a bunch of cases that went through during Aida’s time there,” Imaizumi informed him, the news enough to give Hinata a genuine boost of hope. But, the next time he opened his mouth, it was to crush his hopes entirely. “We haven’t received any requests to review your case though. They would’ve done it by now if they were considering it… so it looks like you’re stuck in here.”

Though he felt initially depressed at the idea that there seemed to be no hope for him, it didn’t take too long for relief to override any other response he might’ve had. He hadn’t been going insane. Aida _had_ been acting shadily.

“I was right,” Hinata breathed out, feeling a surge of righteousness in his blood. “I _told_ you all that I was in here because I knew the truth about her, and you all wrote me off as crazy. Every single one of you.”

“…Well, I think I’d be in trouble if I believed every single person in this place,” Imaizumi admitted, glancing over at all the other inmates. “It’s drilled into us as guards. We pretend to believe you and then stuff you full of pills so you can’t do anything. God, I really do hate working here.”

“Why not get a different job then?”

“…Well, I _am_ getting a transfer to Shinzen in a week from now,” Imaizumi admitted. “Better pay and better perks. But, I hear the head guard is a real asshole. And the inmates aren’t going to be subdued like you all are.” He let out a heavy sigh. “You know, being in this place isn’t so bad. You get to walk around in your own little delusions all day. You get fed. You don’t have to remember how shitty life is on the outside. And you get looked after.”

“Yeah, but you’re constantly treated like you’re crazy. Do you know how frustrating it is to _know_ you’re sane, and then the officials just smile and nod at you before forcing you to take your meds anyway?” Hinata felt his eyebrows furrow together in frustration. That had become his daily existence. Sure, he usually hid the meds under his tongue and spat them out whenever he got the chance, but nobody needed to know that.

“I don’t think I’d mind,” Imaizumi admitted. “You know, getting to know you… I feel like you’d be able to make more use of this life than I ever could. I don’t want anything from life anymore. I’m just living because dying is too much of a bother. But you? You’ve clearly still got a lot to live for. I envy your youth.”

Before they could continue speaking, a loud whistle blew, indicating that it was time for them to go inside. Imaizumi bid him farewell before beginning to round up the rest of the inmates. Hinata watched for a while, but eventually trotted back indoors, all the while mulling over Imaizumi’s words.

_I feel like you’d be able to make more use of this life than I ever could_.

It was almost as if Imaizumi were asking him to switch positions.

***

Over the next few days, Imaizumi continued to drop more and more hints about wanting to be an inmate in this place. He’d talk more and more about how depressing his life was. His superiors bullied him, he had no living family members and he practically got paid in pennies. Not to mention, he was too much of a social recluse to make friends outside of the workplace, and he’d never had a girlfriend of any sort.

“It’s my last day here. I think I’m going to miss this place. Being here… it’s like peeking into some sort of alternate paradise,” Imaizumi lamented. “If I had the choice, I would just switch off and detach from society forever. You’re all so lucky. The life of an inmate… it’s just enviable.”

Although Hinata had been friendly with Imaizumi up until this point, there was something about the implication of him being “lucky” that made him snap. In a short instant, everything that had happened to him flickered by in his mind.

He’d gotten raped by a C.O. not even one month into his stay at Fukurodani.

He’d been forced to dismember a guard by his maniacally crazy ex-boyfriend.

Oh, said ex-boyfriend had also raped him in prison. Multiple times.

_And_ planted a shank in his square to get him carted off to the SHU.

He’d been lulled into promises of love by Kageyama, only for the man to turn around and annihilate all of his friends so that Hinata wouldn’t be able to turn to anyone else.

His sister had ended up getting hurt because of _his_ gang activity.

He’d lost his career.

He’d lost the possibility of a normal family life.

He’d lost his fiancée to his next door neighbour.

He’d lost himself.

And now he was here in Aoba Johsai, rotting away without a single person who knew how he was doing, if he was alright, if he was even _alive_.

“How _dare_ you suggest that I’m lucky,” Hinata growled, rising from his bed and approaching Imaizumi. Imaizumi had sensed the danger in his eyes and placed a hand on his Taser, but he was too slow. He kicked the Taser out of Imaizumi’s hands and using the trick that Terushima had taught him, he’d gotten Imaizumi onto his knees and worked him into a headlock. It helped that Imaizumi was just as short as he was.

“H-Hey… I—”

“People like you romanticise prison life. You think it’s ‘bliss’ being told what to do, what meds to take, when to piss. But we’re not here by _choice_ ,” Hinata snarled, tightening his grip on Imaizumi’s neck. “Prison has destroyed me. I’ll never be able to live among normal society again. You have the privilege of being able to walk outside without feeling antsy. Without feeling like you’re going to get a shot for being somewhere you shouldn’t.”

“Wait… please…” A choked noise came out of Imaizumi’s mouth. “Can’t breathe.”

“You have the privilege of being able to stand in a room full of normal people without feeling like you don’t belong,” Hinata hissed, indifferent to Imaizumi’s clear discomfort. This was _nothing_ compared to what he’d suffered for oh-so-long. “You have the privilege of being able to eat without having to watch your back. Don’t you _dare_ call us lucky. Nothing about our situation is lucky. Someone like you, who watches from the outside, will never understand.”

Hinata tightened his grip even more until Imaizumi had stopped struggling. Letting out a heavy sigh, he laid the now-unconscious Imaizumi out flat on the ground before undressing him.

Once Imaizumi was lying there in nothing but his underwear, Hinata quickly stripped himself off before beginning to pull on Imaizumi’s bright blue uniform. While guards weren’t meant to be alone with inmates in their rooms, Imaizumi had developed some sort of fondness for Hinata.

But, Hinata’s patience had run out. If Imaizumi wanted to be an inmate so goddamn badly, Hinata would let him.

Once the switch was complete, Hinata stared down at Imaizumi’s unmoving face, a little shaken by just how similar Imaizumi looked to him. Imaizumi was a skinny little twig, and while Hinata himself had once had muscle, he too had become skinny and little without much muscle to back him up.

They were virtually identical. And now, Hinata was going to leave him in here to rot.

“Thanks for letting your guard down, _Hinata_ ,” Hinata said, bending down to retrieve his Taser from the ground before edging the door open and setting himself free. Exhilaration rushed through his blood as he strode through the lounge and towards the guard’s room, prepared to finally see the outside of these goddamned walls.

***

While assuming someone else’s personality wasn’t an easy task, thanks to Imaizumi being around him so often, Hinata had been able to observe many of his habits and knew enough about his personal life (or lack thereof) to convincingly portray himself as Imaizumi Shohei.

“H-Hey, guys… I… uh… I’m going to go home early,” Hinata stammered out, one hand levelled over his mouth to hide the fact his voice didn’t quite sound like Imaizumi’s. “I’m not feeling well.”

“Yeah, whatever. We really don’t care,” one of the guards replied, waving a hand in response. “Have fun at Shinzen. Give that Fukurodani king a kick for me, why don’t you? It’s about time they put him in Shinzen rather than that bullshit minimum security prison. Why they insist on keeping gang members in one prison, I’ll never know…”

“F-Fukurodani king?”

“Kageyama Tobio,” the guard clarified. “You know, the head of Karasuno.”

“…Oh. _Oh_.”

_Aida had managed to take Kageyama down_? Hinata wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but he couldn’t show too much of an emotional response. So, he simply let out a grunt and nodded before retrieving his belongings from his locker. And while he had been expecting more of a response, _some_ sort of obstacle to get in his way… he was able to walk out of the guard room without any issues.

Wow. It really was this easy.

Hinata might’ve been inclined to say that he was lucky, but now that he knew he would be working as a guard at the same place where Kageyama was being held… he wasn’t so sure if he was still _lucky_. If Kageyama was there, so was everyone else. And judging by how much they’d been hated at Fukurodani, he could bet that it was going _miserably_ for them right now.

He was in a position to save them if he wanted to.

But, he could also leave Kageyama in there as a “fuck you” for trying to kill the Johzenji. He could. And in all honesty, prison was the best place for people like Kageyama. Someone whose natural response to situations was “kill!” was someone who didn’t belong in normal society.

He wanted to believe that, and yet, his mind kept flickering back to the moments where Kageyama had bared his heart to him and revealed his cracks. Even though Hinata had burned their notebooks himself, that had been after he’d already burned each and every one of Kageyama’s uniquely scrawled words to him into his heart.

**I’d tell you to stop loving me, but I don’t think it’s an option anymore. You get angry when I tell you what to do.**

**So, I’ll tell you every single reason why you shouldn’t love me. It’s the only way I think you’ll understand, Hinata.**

** One. ** **I killed my father. Not just that, I killed him on my mother’s birthday. I’m a fucked up individual, aren’t I?**

** Two. ** **I threw my teammates under the bus. I left them to the police and sped off to save myself. You can’t trust me to protect you forever. I run away when the going gets hard.**

** Three. ** **I’m a coward. You’re not. I’m trapped in the past.**

** Four. ** **I’M FUCKED UP. I take Prozac every day in the hopes that it’ll help me to keep my sanity, but it’s really not. I can’t stop seeing my mother’s face whenever I sleep. It hurts.**

** Five. ** **Everyone will start to hate you, just like they hate me.**

** Six. ** **I don’t know anything about love. Killing people’s the only thing I know.**

** Seven. ** **You’ll see me crying myself to sleep a lot of nights. But you won’t see the tears. Most of the time, I’m all cried out. I act infallible, but I hurt so badly that I can’t help it. I want to die.**

** Eight. ** **There will be days where you’ll see that I’m hurting and you won’t be able to do anything about it. You’ll be unhappy.**

** Nine. ** **I don’t know how to love. I can’t tell when I’ve done something wrong. Not always. I’m not good at communication. I’m the fucking reason we have to talk through these damn pages, for fuck’s sake.**

** Ten. ** **You can do better than me.**

** Eleven. ** **Every time I look in the mirror, all I see are flaws. Everywhere I look.**

** Twelve. ** **I’m in here for forty-three years. You’re in for fifteen. And no, you’re not allowed to purposely make your sentence longer. I’ll be old and ugly by the time I get out of here. By then you’ll have come to your senses.**

** Thirteen. ** **I’m scared of hurting you.**

** Fourteen. ** **I’m scared of loving you.**

** Fifteen. ** **I’m scared, full stop.**

**Will you please understand now? I’m not a good man.**

“Goddamnit,” Hinata said, letting out a heavy sigh as he thought to himself. Kageyama had warned him time and time again that he was bad news, but it had taken Kageyama blowing up all of his friends for him to understand just how _serious_ he was being. Kageyama was genuinely broken.

And while Hinata had thought he could fix him and make him happy again, there was no fixing someone like Kageyama. Sure, he hadn’t been born evil. Hinata got glimpses of that fact sometimes when Kageyama talked about things other than gang life — wanting to learn how to play volleyball, or his obsession with machinery, or things as simple as his affinity for yoghurt. He’d talk about things with the carefree joy of a child, not yet having been tainted by the realities of life.

Kageyama had been a normal kid once.

But then, at some point in his childhood, the lines had become blurred and he’d been forever soured by his circumstances. All Hinata had done by extending his love to Kageyama was make him more unstable than ever.

What Kageyama _really_ needed was the opportunity to reconcile with his past.

That wasn’t something he could do on the inside.

So, in respect of that, Hinata would help him break out of Shinzen. Not so they could be together — though Hinata’s heart still yearned for that alternate reality, even now — but so Kageyama could be free to rebuild himself. He just needed to be sure that Kageyama had no plans to reinstate Karasuno’s position at the top if he got out of Shinzen.

He’d find out. But until then, it was time for Hinata to see what had changed in the outside world.

***

Hinata walked over to the car which had clicked open when he’d pressed down on his car key, unsurprised to see that it was a piece of junk car. He’d seen toy cars that looked better than this. But he wasn’t complaining. He was finally outside of his own free will, and though it would’ve been nice to be greeted by the sun, the wind blowing his hair about was more than enthusiastic enough for his liking.

After a few false starts, he was able to pull the car out of his parking spot and start to manoeuvre his way out of the parking lot, albeit somewhat shakily. Reaching the gate, he rolled his window down and looked at the guard on stand-by. Then, placing a hand over his mouth, he murmured, “I’m off home now. Feeling ill.”

“Sore throat? Your voice sounds weird,” the guard replied.

“Mm-hmm,” Hinata replied. Then, feigning weakness and putting on a scratchy voice, he continued, “I think I’m losing my voice. I can barely speak.”

“God, that really doesn’t sound pretty. Your voice is all high and scratchy,” the guard lamented, clear sympathy in his eyes. “You get yourself home, alright? Recover as much as you can before you start at Shinzen. You’ll need as much energy as you can get if you’re going to be working in a prison like that.”

Hinata nodded.

On that note, the black gates opened wide for him like a pair of welcoming arms, ready to bring him out of prison and into the outside world. He drove out into the road, waving goodbye at the guard before continuing down the road, feeling as if his heart were ready to flutter away from his ribcage and out into the open. He rolled the other window down, allowing himself to breathe in as much fresh air as he could get.

This was freedom.

Hinata could feel tears beading in his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away before he could end up causing a car crash. In all honesty, his driving was a little rusty after having wasted away in prison for so long. He’d almost back-ended a car earlier, and—

“ _Fuck_.”  
Hinata had just run through a red light. While there were no police around to spot him, there had been cameras around. _Great_. That was going to be a fine for him. The worst part was that he didn’t even know the bank details for this Imaizumi guy. He had Imaizumi’s phone, and much to his relief, Imaizumi hadn’t bothered to go to the effort of putting a pin on his phone. It was a simple ‘swipe up and you’re in’. He’d see about finding more details about Imaizumi’s life once he made it to Imaizumi’s house — thankfully, his address had been saved on the satnav attached to the car — but before he went ‘home’, he had one place to visit.

Fukurodani Penitentiary.

It would be a long drive — Fukurodani being in a different prefecture to Aoba Johsai made it a three hour drive at the very least — but if anything, that just gave Hinata even more time to take in the fresh air through his windows.


	5. To Feel The Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata's finally outside of the same walls that once housed him as an inmate.  
> He doesn't linger around Fukurodani for long, but he doesn't come away empty-handed.

Chapter Five: To Feel The Air

When Hinata spotted Oikawa in the parking lot, he started up his car, prepared to cut him off once he’d pulled away from Fukurodani. He waited and waited, bringing his car to the end of the thankfully vacant road.

When staring into the distance became tedious, he occupied himself with brushing the dust off the dashboard of the car with his hands, watching as the tips of his fingers became a light, dreary shade of grey. By the time he noticed the gleam of Oikawa’s purple car pulling out into the main road, the dashboard practically looked brand new while his fingers were comparable to those of a coal mine worker.

Blowing the dust off his fingers, Hinata seized the steering wheel and pressed his foot against the accelerator, cutting across the middle of the road and bringing Oikawa’s car to a halt. The reward of his efforts was loud honking followed by, “Who the hell taught you how to drive, a blind person?”

When Hinata responded by idling the car and stepping out of the car to reveal himself, however, Oikawa’s yelling came to an abrupt pause. After one last loud honk, Oikawa leapt out of the car, glasses on as he shot a look of disbelief in Hinata’s direction.

“Ch-Chibi-chan?” He lifted his glasses, rubbed his eyes and then resettled his glasses on the bridge of his nose, staring hard in Hinata’s direction. “You’re kidding. _You’re kidding_. Once you go to Aoba Johsai, that’s it. You shouldn’t have seen the light again… let alone _freedom_. Are you _really_ chibi-chan?”

“Nope. Imaizumi Shohei now,” Hinata replied, feeling a well-needed burst of amusement at Oikawa’s shell-shocked expression. His jaw had practically dropped to the ground. “Former guard of Aoba Johsai, now moving to Shinzen Maximum Security Prison.”

“…Well, you shouldn’t stand in the open like this. Someone from Fukurodani might see you, and I’d rather not have people thinking I’m colluding with a fugitive,” Oikawa reminded him, though he still sounded mystified by Hinata’s appearance. It was as if Hinata were some sort of rare Pokemon that he’d just spotted. “You _are_ a fugitive, right? People must be looking for you…”

“Nope. No-one’s looking for me.”

“So, you escaped recently then,” Oikawa commented. “People will be looking for you soon.”

“Nope. Like I said, Hinata’s the criminal. I’m Imaizumi Shohei,” Hinata reminded him. “Criminal record’s the cleanest thing you’ll ever see. As long as I live, no-one will be coming after me.”

Oikawa looked genuinely baffled. “So… you’re _free_? All of a sudden?”

“I’m free.”

“Well… uh…” Oikawa rubbed his chin pensively. After a few seconds, he finally seemed to recover from his shock and suggested with a smile, “What do you say I treat you to a Maccies?”

At the thought of a pleasure as simple as McDonalds, Hinata felt his mouth beginning to water. The idea of getting to shove greasy, cheap beef down his throat, combine it with piping hot fries and down it all with a large vanilla milkshake was an appealing one. Sure, it had been the last thing on his mind in prison, but now… it felt like the start of him slowly regaining a sense of normalcy in a world which felt too big for him.

“Sure,” Hinata replied. “On you, right? I kinda don’t have any money.”

“As I _am_ the great Oikawa-san after all, sure. It’s the least I could do.”

On that note, Oikawa clambered back into his car, giving an order for Hinata to follow closely behind him.

***

“…And that’s how I’m sitting here in front of you,” Hinata concluded, having told the story of his not-so-dramatic escape from Aoba Johsai. They’d been sitting here for the past fifteen minutes, simply catching up with each other while partaking in the simple joy that was a McDonald’s meal.

“Jesus Christ.” Oikawa set down his milkshake before clarifying, “You literally just _walked out_?”

“Mm-hmm,” Hinata hummed, mouth full of fries. “Anyway, that’s me. Tell me what’s been happening at Fukurodani. How the hell did Karasuno end up in Shinzen?”

“Oh, God.”

The expression that appeared on Oikawa’s face was indication enough that whatever had happened, it had been an absolute nightmare. While Hinata might’ve tried to slow down his eating so that he could remain focused on what Oikawa was about to say, he genuinely couldn’t stop shoving this food down his throat. He’d wolfed down a Big Mac, large fries and was now slurping down his milkshake.

It hadn’t even been five minutes since the McDonald’s worker had brought them their food.

“Were they not feeding you at Aoba Johsai or something?” Oikawa asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Everything they gave us was bland flavourless mush,” Hinata recalled with a grimace. While Fukurodani had certainly been a hellish experience in parts, at least the food had been interesting. Aoba Johsai had been one long bland experience leaving him with nothing but his rapidly declining mind for company.

Hinata looked around himself before asking, “Is it okay if I go to the toilet?”

“…You don’t have to ask for permission, you know. You’re not in prison anymore.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right,” Hinata said, nodding his head before tentatively rising to his feet. He disappeared into the sea of customers, feeling conscious the entire time he walked through. While he feared that someone would recognise him as Hinata Shouyou the infamous volleyball player, he knew that prison had distorted him to the point that not a single person would recognise him. His hair was scraggly and greasy underneath his Aoba Johsai cap. His body was weak and wiry. And he didn’t walk with the same air of confidence he’d had when he’d entered prison.

He slunk through the crowd, almost as if trying to shrink into the shadows.

When he finally made it to the toilet, he rushed in, making a pointed effort to avoid the cubicle. He looked around himself once more before unbuttoning his trousers and going towards the nearest urinal, trying to make it as quick as possible. Every time he heard the door swing open, however, he felt as if he just _couldn’t_ pee. It was trapped inside of him.

And now he couldn’t stop shaking.

There was nobody watching his back. No Terushima, no Kageyama, no Aoba Johsai guard. Last time he’d gone to the toilet unattended in Aoba Johsai, he’d been viciously attacked by an inmate who had believed that he was ‘an angel, and damn all you angels because you left me here to _die_ ’. He’d grown used to there being a guard in Aoba Johsai who would watch over them whenever they went to the toilets.

But now, there was nobody.

It was just him.

Just him.

Releasing a heavy breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, he pulled up his trousers and washed his hands before dashing out of the bathroom, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. He could wait until he got home to use the toilet.

When he found his way back to Oikawa, his mood was revived somewhat by the sight of an identical Big Mac, large fries and large milkshake in his spot. Oikawa shot him a kind smile as he continued to slurp his own milkshake, an understanding look in his eyes.

“You’d do well to beat your prison habits out before you go to Shinzen,” Oikawa commented. “Those guards spend every single day around inmates. They know an inmate when they see one, no matter what clothes they’re wearing.”

Hinata gulped and nodded, though he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do that as quickly as his job would require. He started on September 1st, according to what Imaizumi had said, but he didn’t even know what date it was _now_.

“What… what day is it today?”

“Sunday. It’s August 28th,” Oikawa replied.

One month and four days since he tried to hang himself. One month and four days since he’d gotten shipped off to Aoba Johsai. One month and four days since he’d awoken to the sight of Kageyama crying over his unmoving body, looking as if he’d cracked and shattered to pieces on the inside.

Now, he was on the outside. It was up to him to rescue Karasuno. And, he had three days until his job would begin.

Three days to pick up Imaizumi’s mannerisms.

Three days to learn as much about his fake life as he could.

Three days to learn how to live like a normal human being again.

“Thanks,” Hinata replied, now beginning to scarf down his food again. Likely knowing that Hinata’s mouth was occupied, Oikawa began to speak.

“So, after you left, everything became a shitstorm,” Oikawa explained. “After Aida managed to haul Tobio-chan and the rest of them into Shinzen, Tobio-chan decided to leave a little ‘gift’ for her in the form of Shiratorizawa’s Fukurodani Daily. Except, rather than having the front page story be about his ‘gay adventures with C.O. Towada’, it was all about Aida’s transgressions and her clear violation of human rights as executive assistant warden.”

Hinata’s jaw might’ve dropped had it not been busy chewing into this burger. Still, he was able to let out a slight choked noise of shock mid-chew. Aida hadn’t seemed all that corrupt to him… he’d definitely suspected that she had had something to do with the Johzenji incident, but from what Oikawa was saying, that hadn’t been an isolated incident. She’d done enough bad things for it to lead to her termination.

Had she really sunk down to Kageyama’s level just to get him in Shinzen?

“Now,” Oikawa continued, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but do you remember when Towada called you into his office to let you know that your sister was injured?”

Hinata felt a chill go down his spine. “…Why are you mentioning that?”

“It was all a lie. Aida-chan knew you’d go off the edge if she mentioned something about your family members getting hurt. She testified to that in court. It was all a lie. She did it because she knew that if she broke you beyond repair, it would also break Tobio-chan and create the foundation she needed to send him to Shinzen without risking any sort of massive riots. She says she did what she had to to make sure that Karasuno and Nekoma would finally receive the punishment they deserved, no matter what. And that she doesn’t regret any of it,” Oikawa explained. Though his tone remained neutral, there was a dark anger that brimmed in his brown eyes. At first, Hinata didn’t quite process his words. He continued chewing as if Oikawa hadn’t said anything. But then, the meaning of Oikawa’s words permeated his brain.

And just like that, his body stopped belonging to him.

His hands froze against the table. His heart started pounding out of control. And his jaw dropped to the extent that his half-chewed burger dropped out of his mouth and onto the wrapper beneath him. His mind had gone blank. This entire time, he’d felt guilty over the idea that his sister had paid the price for his mistakes…

…and it was all a lie.

All because he’d been associated with Kageyama Tobio.

Kageyama. Kageyama. _Kageyama_.

Kageyama had stolen his sanity, tried to destroy his friends and because he’d been too stubborn to play along with Aida and appease her, Hinata had ended up becoming one of Aida’s pawns.

“…My sister… she’s okay…”

“She’s okay,” Oikawa confirmed, leaning forwards to clasp one of Hinata’s hands. “Hey. Stay with me, chibi-chan. Stay with me. Don’t disassociate on me now.”

“It’s too much, damnit…” Hinata’s voice was strained as he tried his best to suck in a deep breath, feeling his chest ache as he did so. “I can’t take this anymore. It’s too goddamn much. Why did I have to get hurt because of _him_? Why? I never killed a single person. I didn’t _do_ anything. All I did was witness crimes. I witnessed them. And because of that, my entire fucking life has been trampled over. Ruined. Mangled. It’s all _gone_.”

“No, no, no. Listen to me. It’s not gone,” Oikawa insisted. “Your sister’s alive. Your family’s alive. The Johzenji are alive. Everyone is alive. And especially you. You’re alive. You’re here. You’re not gone.”

“No. I’m not here. I’m rotting away in Aoba Johsai,” Hinata reminded him, letting out a deep sigh. Then, lowering his voice, he added, “Hinata Shouyou will never exist again. I can’t go back to my family. I can’t go back to any of my friends. I can’t go back to volleyball. If I can’t do any of those things; if I can’t access all of those hopes that kept me living, I’m essentially gone. I’m dead to them, and they’re all dead to me.” With a note of finality, he repeated that last bit. “They’re all dead to me.”

He withdrew his hand from Oikawa’s and continued to eat his food, though he wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as he had been before. He was outside, but at the cost of everything that had kept him going. Living as a different man was analogous with killing his past identity and everything that came with it. He had nothing left. Nothing but a dead-end job as a prison guard, a piece of junk for a car and a body that didn’t really feel like his anymore.

“You’ve still got the Johzenji,” Oikawa softly reminded him.

At that, Hinata felt a piece of him return as he looked up to mumble, “What?”

“It turned out you were right about the Johzenji,” Oikawa went on to explain. “Aida-chan was behind the explosion. She threatened Terushima into detonating the phone bomb otherwise they would all get extra time. They did it to make Karasuno believe that they’d succeeded in killing the Johzenji, but actually, it allowed her to present a legitimate reason to send both Karasuno and Nekoma to Shinzen. She’d been—”

“Wait, wait, wait. So they’re alive? All of them?” Hinata asked, a mouth full of fries.

“Yes. They’re all alive and well back in Fukurodani,” Oikawa replied. “They also received reduced sentences. Public defenders made the case for them that they had been the victim of ‘inhumane experimentation’ on part of Aida-chan, humans rights groups were putting pressure on the legal system with their protests, and since there was proof of them behaving well in prison and not getting in trouble, they got their sentences shaved down _significantly_. And guess what? They even got this massive financial settlement of a couple million yen. It was all over the news. I’m pretty sure they’re getting released sometime around the start of October. And I’m positive they’d love to see you again. Especially Terushima-chan.”

Hinata had known it deep down, but to hear that verbal confirmation practically made his entire body come alight with excitement. He could’ve started crying, and hell, he _did_. Tears were streaming down his face as he continued to chomp his food down, the words _thank God_ resounding in his head over and over again. Sure, he didn’t really consider himself religious, but those were the only words his brain could formulate right now.

“Can you get a message to Terushima for me? Please?”

“All I heard was _muh fuh muh tuh fa muh puh_.”

Hinata swallowed his last mouthful before repeating his statement.

A somewhat hesitant look appeared on Oikawa’s face. Then, in an uncharacteristically gentle voice, he said, “I don’t know, chibi-chan. It sounds risky. And besides… I’m not quite sure how Terushima-chan feels about you. The only time he spoke to me about the incident, he said that he feels like you betrayed him that night. He’s still conflicted over you, but…”

“You need to tell him I had nothing to do with the bombing. I broke ties with Kageyama after he bombed them,” Hinata insisted. “You need to tell him. I don’t want him to hate me. I don’t. I can’t take the thought of that. The Johzenji are like a second family to me… I don’t want to lose them.”

And then, a tidbit of information flickered in his mind.

“Wait. I just remembered,” Hinata piped up. “Futamata and Izaka are still in Shinzen. Okay. And… the guy whose identity I stole said something about how they’re reviewing all the cases under Aida. I know Izaka was pre-Aida, but what about Futamata? Has anything happened with his case?”

“Nothing yet. The courts sent an alert to Shinzen, but it’s up to their head guard to put individual inmates through for consideration if he feels that injustice was done,” Oikawa explained. “Aida was corrupt in the way that she twisted the rules, deliberately goaded inmates like you into harm to take down others and ‘played’ with her prey before sending them to Shinzen, but… her judgement was impeccable. Anything she did, she did because she felt that the inmate was ‘evil’ enough to justify it. He was sent there for having weed, right?”

Hinata nodded.

“Well, given Johzenji’s reputation and the fact that anyone would get sent to Shinzen for having drugs, it’s unlikely that the courts would reverse the decision,” Oikawa admitted, a pensive expression shaping his face. “But, it’s still worth giving it a try! Izaka-san can also get consideration for his case since it’s been about a year since he got sent to Shinzen.”

“Sure. I’ll do what I can for both of them,” Hinata declared, pressing a hand to his chest. “You tell Terushima that I’ll get the Johzenji family back together. That’s my way of making amends for dragging them into my mess.”

“Hey, chibi-chan. You know you’re not responsible for Tobio-chan’s actions,” Oikawa chided, flicking his forehead. He let out a squawk as he leaned back from Oikawa, promptly kicking his shin under the table. Oikawa let out a loud yelp of pain. “ _Youch_! C’mon, you didn’t have to kick me _that_ hard.”

“Sorry. Reflex,” Hinata explained, all too aware of the eyes on their table now. He waited until people had grown bored of watching them before continuing to speak to Oikawa in a lower voice. “Terushima warned me about Kageyama and I responded by throwing Terushima’s past back in his face. I hurt him because I didn’t want to believe that he was in the right.”

“Hey. Now, you know I love my dear kouhai, but Tobio-chan is a scary person. So much that I sometimes find myself hating him,” Oikawa admitted, letting out a heavy sigh. “You know? One time, he was just a little blueberry that didn’t even _look_ like a threat. And now he’s this monster blowing up entire dorms and apparently putting hits out on prison officials!”

“Wait, hits? Who’d he put a hit out on?”

“Aida-chan. Towada testified to it in court and pulled out this note Tobio-chan gave him as proof,” Oikawa explained. “They compared it with a known copy of Tobio-chan’s writing, and a professional scribe was able to tell that it was written with an upwards slant to make it look different visually, but otherwise with the same consistency as Tobio-chan’s normal handwriting. That was how they got enough evidence to put him away for life.”

Hinata froze. “Life?”

“Mm-hmm. Tobio-chan got life in Shinzen, so he’s staying in the most extreme block. And since Mr Refreshing was his sidekick, he got a life sentence too. Neither of them are ever going to see the sun again.”

“Who the hell is ‘Mr Refreshing’? You mean _Suga_?”

“I like Mr Refreshing better,” Oikawa remarked with a grin.

_Mr Refreshing_. Oikawa really did come up with the weirdest nicknames for people…

“Oh, actually, I think you’d be interested to know that their official hearings were today,” Oikawa quipped, seemingly having just remembered. “The official decisions came down the pipeline to us this morning. So, the Karasuno members that were framed by Takeru and his guys had their case dropped and five years shaved off their sentences. But, because of Rolling Thunder’s constant escape attempts with his bald best friend and that loud Nekoma guy with the mohawk, the judge decided that they were too ‘high risk’ to go back to Fukurodani. They gave the Karasuno goatee guy a choice, but he decided to stay in Shinzen.”

Hinata let out a hum. In all honesty, it was a little amusing to him just how bad Oikawa seemed to be at remembering names. It was no wonder he’d opted to give people weird nicknames rather than just remembering their names.

“You think that Karasuno will still exist by the time they get out?”

“They’ll be too old to do anything by the time they get out. Assuming they live long enough to see their release dates,” Oikawa admitted, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t see them lasting too long in Shinzen. The inmates won’t be intimidated by Tobio-chan and they’ll scoff at Karasuno’s blonde sadist too. Honestly, I can’t imagine it’s going too well for them in there right now…”

“Well… as long as there’s no power left for Kageyama to cling onto… I think it’ll be good for him in the long run,” Hinata admitted. Power had destroyed Kageyama single-handedly. He’d become so fixated on holding onto it that he’d lost grip on everything else, including his sanity. “When this is all over, he might be able to find himself again.”

“What are you talking about _when this is all over_? He’s in there for life,” Oikawa reminded him. But just mere seconds after voicing the reminder, disbelief crept into his eyes as he said in a lower voice, “No. Chibi-chan. You’re not thinking of—”

“Shh,” Hinata hissed, looking around himself before returning his attention to Oikawa. “Someone might overhear. I’m not trying to go back to prison when I just got out.”

“Chibi-chan, you _can’t_ do this,” Oikawa insisted, worry in his eyes. “The universe gave you a chance to get away. Just try and settle into your new life until the Johzenji come out. Don’t get yourself involved with Karasuno _again_. It’s not going to end well.”

“I have to. Despite all the shit Kageyama’s done, I still love him,” Hinata admitted, letting out a heavy sigh as he slurped up the last of his milkshake. It was cold as it trickled down his throat, and yet his heart was burning so hot. So, so hot. “And I know that if he wants to better himself, he can’t do it in a place where he’s forced to rise to the top in the name of self-protection. Prison has turned him into a ticking time-bomb. He needs to get out and reconnect with his past so that he can put it away for good and _move on_ rather than clinging to old letters and postcards for just a shred of sanity. I recognise that we can’t be together, but I still want the best for him.”

“Chibi-chan…”

With a tear trickling down his cheek, Hinata asked, “Is that so bad?”

He’d felt his voice crack at the end. But he forced himself to keep his composure steely. He couldn’t break, not now that he was on the outside world. Crying was a show of weakness; it was a sign that he could be toyed with by the other inmates; it would let people like Takeru prey on him, people like Kageyama manipulate and toy with him, people like Tendou take advantage of him—

“No,” Oikawa replied, pushing his glasses up with one finger. “It’s not bad. I get it.”

“Then, don’t try to stop me. I have to do this,” Hinata declared. “No matter what.”

Oikawa nodded his head. “So… you’re happy that Karasuno is crumbling from the inside. Because even if Tobio-chan wants to reinstate it once he gets out, he can’t. He’ll be forced to focus on what’s important. Himself.”

“Yeah. Exactly,” Hinata replied, wiping his tear away with one hand.

“You know, it’s crazy how you can go through all the things you did and still come out with a heart of gold,” Oikawa remarked, a genuinely curious expression on his face. “It’s not often that people make it through prison with their compassion intact. By the end, they’ve had that ‘me first’ mentality drilled into them for so long that they forget how to think about others. Yet, rather than thinking about moving away from prison life… you’re going back in to save the same person who tried to take the Johzenji away from you. And you’re risking your own safety in the process.”

“Some things have to be done. I’m not turning back,” Hinata declared, his heart thrumming in his chest as he sat up straight. “I spent _ages_ shrinking in on myself. Letting myself be saved by other people. Being victimised, punished, hurt. All because I didn’t have the balls to defend myself. No more. _No more_. I’ve had it. If I’ve got a new identity, this means I have to mark a new chapter in my new life. I’m not going to sit around and wait for someone else to take action. I’m going to prove, to _myself_ , that I _am_ a badass. That I _am_ capable and that I _am_ strong and that I am _everything_ that Takeru told me I wasn’t, that the world told me I wasn’t.”

On that note, Hinata rose to his feet, purpose rushing through his blood.

“I’m not going to be anyone’s punching bag anymore. _This_ is the new me.”

Oikawa slowly nodded his head before rising to his feet, seemingly thinking to himself for a few moments. He slowly approached Hinata, crossing the distance between them, and prised the Aoba Johsai cap from his head. Just like that, his untamed bush of orange hair sprung out.

And then, a peppy smile lit up Oikawa’s lips.

“Well, chibi-chan, if this is the new you, we’ve got to get you a makeover!”


End file.
